Thursday 19 July 2012

The A-Z of Depressed Words


What can I say? The school holidays have begun and parents everywhere are faced with the challenge of keeping children amused for ridiculous amount of time. 
When did this keeping amused malarkey begin?  At the risk of sounding like the proverbial ancient fart, I used to amuse myself quite happily. Yes, yes, in perfectly innocent ways. 

‘Yeah, but you did weird things,’ said James. A long pause and then two words spat in accusation. ‘You painted.’
‘It’s true,’ I replied meekly. ‘I did. And I made things.’
‘Weird things,’ he repeated, firmly.

I frowned. Were dinosaurs made out of chicken bones weird?  And felt trolls? 
‘But I made money out of it all,’ I said defensively.  ‘Like I had an art gallery one summer and flogged my paintings; and then I did a haunted house and charged admission.’
‘Weird things.’

This sort of malarkey has never washed with James.  He’s never been a child who likes his own company. Some people just don’t.  When he was little I spent hours trying to instill in him a love of the arts – books weren’t just read, they were play-acted; rolls of lining paper were stretched out on the kitchen floor and we hurled paint around together; we made godamn musical instruments for pity’s sake. 
Some of it rubbed off.  He loves music (just doesn’t particularly want to play it himself). He reads furiously (but sticks to auto/biographies mainly).  But he refuses point-blank to do art or drama (too much of that around in real-life, he says).
So I guess there will be X-Box. There will be a lot of cricket and squash and a helluva lot of loping and sighing and eye-rolling. 
‘Hey,’ I said. ‘We could always go back to some of the old games.’
‘Like what?’ he said suspiciously. 
‘Umm…A-Z?’
This was a game we used to play on long car journeys (alongside one word/clause/sentence stories and car number plate dramas).  You know the score – you pick a theme (countries, cars, fruit, breeds of dog, authors etc) and go round in a circle taking the next letter of the alphabet. Jeez, it wears thin. 
‘Oh for **** sake,’ he said. ‘How depressing is that?’
And so, for your despond, I give you…


The A-Z of depressed words

A is for Apathy
B is for Boredom
C is for Crestfallen
D is for Despond
E is for Entropy
F is for Forlorn
G is for Gloom
H is for Hopeless
I is for Inconsequential
J is for Jaded
K is for Kiss (of Death) – interesting one – no really gloomy words start with K (C is pretty tough too) – the sound is just too explosive and cutting.
L is for Lost
M is for Morose
N is for Nylon (yes, I know but really…it is depressing, right?)
O is for Oppressed
P is for Pitiful
Q is for Querulous
R is for Redundant
S is for Sluggish
T is for Torpor
U is for Unremitting
V is for Void
W is for Why?
Y is for Yawning (as in chasm)
Z is for Zero

Can you add any better ones?  To accompany I offer you the wondrousness that is Edward Gorey. You haven’t come across him?  Oh, you lucky, lucky people. Go seek.

9 comments:

Unknown said...

Why is Nylon depressing? Wish I could just come over with the kids, there's never a dull moment with them :)

Saturnine, that's a favourite of mine.

LeeAnn at Mrs Black's said...

Love that photo of the chicken and the boy - where-ever did you find it? It's been so long since we had to entertain a child during school holidays that I'd forgotten the chaos of it. Made me smile. ; ~ )

Rob-bear said...

More doom, despair, and despond
from the east side of the pond.

Ah, yes; it is end of term, and the Bluebird of happiness has been replaced by the Buzzard of despond.

Blessings and Bear hugs!

Fennie said...

Friends, I had to have friends, or life would end. Or acquaintances would do - at a pinch. We might discuss depressive words beginning with K - like Kafka - or Koestler - do they count? Or Kruschev - you are probably too young to remember Cuban (there's a C) missile crisis (another C). But we all couldn't quite believe we were about to be blown up. James would be about the same age as I was. After that, well things don't seem quite so bad.

Kraken - there's another K and K is the chemical symbol for Potassium of which if you have too much or too little you may become depressed.
Just chemical (another C) imbalance.
Kristalnacht was pretty depressing too.

Expat mum said...

I would add (if that was what I was being invited to do) "Underwhelming", which may or may not be a real word, but it's bloody depressing all the same.

Greta said...

Wherever have the years gone? I have recollections of mooching around the house during the long hot 7 weeks of high summer wishing it would all end. Now? Blink and it's gone.

K as in krist is it not finished YET? K is such a not English letter, isn't it? Great for kangaroo and koala

Anonymous said...

We didn't have XBox's and computers back then but we still made our own enjoyment. Fortunately, Amy's a bit of a loner like me so I don't have to spend hours on the phone organising friends coming over!

CJ x

Ross Mountney said...

Yes - there seems to be a theory that kids have to be entertained all the time. But I've also heard a theory that it's good for them to be bored - they eventually get off their backsides and do something. We never had the school holiday problem as ours didn't go to school ( see my blog for tales of that!) and were rehearsed in doing stuff for themselves, some as weird as your activities, from mud pie making, collecting owl pellets to completely customising outfits! See - you're not alone!

Frances said...

Jane, I am a big Edward Gorey fan and have some of his books. There was once a book store, the Gotham Book Store, located on the same midtown NYC block as all the diamond dealers. This shop used to have Edward Gorey exhibits.

I miss the store and Mr. Gorey.
xo